John Lopez and his 26-27-60 theory on drafting QBs

Check out this interesting article by John Lopez from si.com. I think he came up with this 26-27-60 rule himself – impressively thought out I have to say. The general idea is that QBs who have a 26 or higher on the Wonderlic, 27 college starts or more and a completion percentage of at least 60%, will succeed in the NFL. His examples of successful QBs who have met those numbers are compelling: Manning, Matt Ryan, Brees, Romo, Schaub, Rivers. (Check out Ryan Fitzpatrick’s Wonderlic score of 48…wow.) At the same time his list of those who did not have all 3 of these qualifiers was also compelling: Ryan Leaf, Joey Harrington, Akili Smith, Tim Couch, David Carr, JaMarcus Russell (among others). A few notable exceptions are Brett Favre (22 on Wonderlic) and Donovan McNabb (14 on Wonderlic) – and he doesn’t mention him, but our own Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers I believe falls short in the games started category – he started 22 games in college as far as I can tell. I believe he had a 35 on the Wonderlic and his completion percentage was 63.8%. So, technically, like Favre and McNabb, Rodgers would actually belong in Lopez’s loser category.

2 Responses to “John Lopez and his 26-27-60 theory on drafting QBs”

If you consider that Rodgers played two years of juco and add that to his two years at Cal, he had started enough collegiate games to qualify. Even though it was junior college, it was time on the field.